


Ghost of You

by kfinezy



Category: Captain America, Marvel
Genre: M/M, Multi, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-09-26 04:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9861608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kfinezy/pseuds/kfinezy
Summary: The famous "Captain America" crash landed in New York ice and was presumed dead 70 years ago. Upon awaking, Steve Rogers realized that he was extremely out of place in 21st-century New York. He was recruited by SHIELD and offered help in adjusting to his new world, but nothing aided in mending the tear in his heart. He slowly began to remember his past, the war, Peggy, Bucky... However this only made his heartache worse. He was a man trapped in time, a man out of time, a man yearning for more time and yet for less at the same time. And as time wore on, Steve's mind tried to convince him that Bucky was somehow still alive, that he survived the fall from the train. He couldn't be alive... could he?





	1. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve wakes up from an ice-induced coma and realizes he is in the wrong century.

A shiny, metal table in a small, gray operating room. My sight was the first of my senses to come back to me, followed by feeling. The air was cold, along with the table, and the chunks of ice that surrounded my limp figure. From what I could discern, there were doctors huddled around the table, poking and prodding at me with small, metal tools that I couldn’t identify. 

One of the doctors placed his hand on my heart, letting the warmth from his hand sink deep into my chest for a lingering few moments. “He’s alive!” he shouted, to which the other three doctors clasped their hands over their mouths or cheered a bit before going back to work. 

That’s when I fell back asleep.

The next thing I remembered was a white, oscillating ceiling fan. And a cool breeze. And a New York Yankees game playing quietly in the background from a radio. A game that I had attended three years prior. 

I sat up slowly and let my eyes scan the room. The walls were ivory and the floors were covered in light grey tile. Light was pouring in from the windows, almost bright enough to be mistaken as fake lighting. I was seated in what looked like a hospital bed, but I had no recollection of what I had done to be placed in this setting.  
Suddenly, a nurse entered through the door across from my bed. 

“Hello, Mr. Rogers.” she smiled gently. “How are you feeling?"

I paused and looked coldly into her eyes. "What year is it?"

She blinked a few times and furrowed her brow, acting as though I should know. "1945. The end of the war." she smiled once more, unnervingly. "I would actually like to congratulate you on your work with the US military. We won." 

"No, what year is it?" I shifted my gaze to the radio, stationed on the dresser next to where she was standing. "The game. I was there. It shouldn't be playing if it's still 1945. It took place in 1943." Her eyes widened and she bent her head down slightly to reach her lips to the collar of her shirt. She muttered something inaudible to me and reached a hand into the loop of her belt slowly.

Before she could react, I was off the bed. I smashed through the wall next to the cot with my right shoulder, bracing upon impact and expecting to hit the street of 1945 New York. Instead I hit the floor of an industrial building in 2011 New York. I scrambled up onto my feet and continued sprinting toward any exit I could find. Agents dressed in suits of full black grabbed guns from their holsters and aimed at my feet as I continued to dart through the building.

An exit. A large set of glass double doors stood in front of me, and the only thing that was keeping me from the outside world, the right world, were a few large men blocking my escape. Luckily, I had still retained the superhuman strength from the serum. I bashed one of them in the skull as he attempted to punch me in the stomach, ramming his now limp body into the other two guards. Just as I was making my escape, I felt a small jolt of electricity through my left calf. I looked down to see that one of the guards had attempted to jab a strange black gun into my leg. I shook off the voltage and continued to scramble through the glass doors before someone could grab hold of me.

I expected to see the New York I once knew. Bustling streets with children playing baseball, short, brown buildings that housed small shops on poorly paved streets, American flags hanging from every street corner. Stout cars honking violently as they were cut off by other stout cars honking violently. People buying goods and products from local street venders. Newspapers sold at small stands and by teenage boys who rode their bikes around the city, announcing a US victory in the war. 

Instead I saw animated screens, with pictures flying across in small pixels. The buildings scraped the sky and towered above the city. Shiny, modern cars zoomed by nicely paved streets. People scuttled about, wearing clothes that I had never seen the likes of. Some tourists had hair in unnatural colors, and their heeled shoes gave them an extra five inches in height. The sights and sounds were all too much. Where was I? Better yet, when was I?


	2. Adjusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD psychologists meet with Steve to see how he is adjusting to life in the 21st century, which brings up unpleasant memories of Steve's past and reminds him of his lost best friend.

1 month later 

"Steve," she cried softly, "stay with me..."

I struggled to halt the aircraft. The gears jammed and the wheel had stopped working, leaving me stranded, flying towards the Hudson Bay at 100 mph. I couldn't stop the plane. There was nothing I could do to save myself. But it didn't matter anyway. Schmidt was dead. HYDRA was compromised. It was over for me. I was never meant to go home. I could still hear Peggy's faint breathing over the intercom, which was making it so much harder to say goodbye. I was never going to see her again. I was never going to hold her hand again. I was never going to kiss her again. I would never hear her commanding voice talking to me gently, as though she hadn't taken down a Nazi operative ten minutes prior. I would never get to grow old with her. I would forever be stuck at 25. 

"Peggy," I asked quietly, trying not to let her know that a single tear had fallen from my cheek. 

"Yes, Steve?" 

"You still owe me a dance." 

She let out a single laugh through her sobs. "Fine. Next Tuesday at precisely 6 pm, and don't be late..." 

But before she could finish her sentence, I was gone. 

And I was back. Back in 2011. In my small apartment which sat right outside SHIELD headquarters. Every night since I woke up, I had been living through that same moment over and over again, the same wretched dream. It was like a sweet nightmare. My life should have ended there. But it didn't. Instead of passing on like I should have, I was thrown into a world where I didn't belong, being taunted by dreams of my past.

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes before sitting up slowly and hanging over the side of my bed. I brushed my blonde hair out of my eyes and stood, my legs shaking a bit as I got used to putting weight on them once more. I made my way into the kitchen, only to find a small bit of paper slipped under the front door. 

"Report to the Triskellion at 8:30 am for adjustment interview." 

I had received prior notice of this meeting, but since I didn't know how to deal with modern technology, and Nick Fury didn't trust me to remember to attend, they figured it best to manually remind me. I placed the note on the table and proceeded back into the bedroom, where I found a white t-shirt, khaki pants, and a brown leather jacket. I took one look in the mirror and sighed, seeing the Steve of the past, not the 97 year old that looked back at me with dark eyes and a tired face. On the outside, I looked the same. I could pass for a college student if I really wanted to, but inside, I was too old to be here. 

Half an hour later, I was seated in a small office inside SHIELD headquarters, waiting for the psychologist to arrive. The room must have been an interrogation room or some type of holding cell in its past, due to its minuscule size and the lack of windows it possessed. I had a hardened expression once the agent finally arrived, dreading the so-called 'interview.' I had been a test subject before, I had seen psychologists, I had been put through interviews. None of them ended well. I was always questioned to near insanity, with no human decency to keep certain matters private. The interloper always went up one side of me and down the other, cramming me into corners with questions that poked and prodded at my deepest feelings. 

The worst was after Bucky's death.

"What did you feel like?" the military psychologist asked, a keen smile on her face. 

"Excuse me?" I raised an eyebrow and leaned toward the edge of my seat.

"What did you feel like," she asked again, "when you saw your best friend die?"

I shook my head and recalled the tragedy. I had to push it out of my head once more to keep from falling out of my chair. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to answer that question, never mind for you to ask it. That's personal information that I would rather not share."

"Well you must have felt something. Look, in all honesty, I'm not here to make you feel any better. I'm here to gather military information, so do me a favor and cooperate, will ya?"

I snapped back into reality when I realized that a young woman was now sitting in front of me. Her hair was the color of copper, her eyes dark brown. To my surprise, she wasn't staring into my soul, looking for answers for the military. She seemed to be showing genuine compassion and care, but I kept my dark stare just to keep my guard up. 

"Hello, Mr. Rogers." she smiled. "I'm Agent Hadley. I will be doing your psycho-analysis today, so feel free to express any concerns you have to me."

I nodded and shifted my weight onto my right hip, crossing my right leg over the left. "Nice to meet you, Agent Hadley." I tried to return the grin, but it just wouldn't show. 

"So, Steve, how are you adjusting?" she started. "Do you find it easy living in the 21st century, or is it difficult to even get out of bed in the morning because you would rather be dead?"

"Well, it's certainly not easy, but I've just been taking it one day at a time." I answered. "Though, sometimes I wish that I'd never woken up."

"Why?"

Here we go. Here begins the pressing questions about inner personal thoughts and things better kept private. I didn't answer.

"I mean, why do you wish that you'd never woken up? You must have woken up for a reason. The world must really need you if you're still here."

"I don't know. It's been tough thought. I have the same dream every night. I'm in the ship again, and I can hear Peggy's voice, and when the ship crashes, I wake up. And I've had trouble remembering Bucky, and the Howling Commandos, and even myself. The only thing I can vividly remember is that last moment on the ship, right before I died."

"But you didn't die, Steve." she smiled, hope in her eyes, though I didn't know why. Why would she still have hope when I should be dead? "You're still here. And that's all that matters. Try living in the moment more. Don't worry so much about your past. It will come back to you when you're ready for it to. Trust me, it's still in you. Now, about Bucky, what do you miss most about Bucky?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm qualified to answer this." I stated. "Like I mentioned, I don't remember much. And what would I want to remember, that my best friend died 70 years ago and fell off the side of a train?"

"Look, I think you're getting the wrong idea here. I'm not looking for answers, I'm just trying to guide you, to help you adjust to this world, to help you accept your past and move on from it. I understand if you're not ready for that, but I know you remember at least one thing about him."

His hair was soft, brown, and parted on the left side of his head. His eyes were as blue as the sky, and they sparkled in any sort of lighting. He had always been taller than I, but after I underwent transformation, he was the slightest bit shorter. He was able to turn a rotten day into a great one, and he never failed to make me happy. Even after every girl I ever went on a date with ditched me, he was still there. He was like the knight in shining armor, waiting for me at the end of a long line of lousy princesses. He didn't want to be my friend because he pitied me, he wanted to be my friend because he saw me, the underdog, and wanted to take my side. And I will never forget that.


	3. A New Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's constant dream of Peggy and the crashing plane shifts to include Steve's apparent death and finally reuniting with the ghost of his best friend, Bucky Barnes. When Steve wakes from this dream, he sees a figure outside his window, only to discover it's Bucky, still alive, though incredibly different than when Steve last saw him in 1945.

The same dream. The same nightmare. Peggy's sweet voice. The plane crashing. The ice and the water and what I thought was death. At this point I was used to it, since I had been experiencing the same dream over and over again for the past 2 months, ever since I had awoken from my coma. 

"You owe me a dance."

However, expecting to hit the ice and wake up, I hit the ice and fell through it. It shattered around me and spewed all over the ship in tiny crystals. I went plummeting through a gouged hole in the bottom of the ship, landing in ice cold water. I looked up to see a thick layer of ice above my head, trapping me in the ice. I scrambled for air and swam to the top, banging on the ice to try and crack it, but it didn't give. 

As I continued banging on the ice, a shadow of feet walked across the opposite side of the ice, bending down and reaching their hand straight through the ice, as if it weren't even there, as if they were a ghost. I waited a moment before grabbing the hand and letting it drag me up through the ice. I slid through the ice like I no longer possessed a material body. And in fact, when I looked back down at the ice, I could see myself floating in the freezing water, unconscious. 

The ghostly figure reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. Bucky. Or, more appropriately, the ghost of Bucky. 

"Buck, I thought you were dead?" I stammered, still shivering from the bitter air and the sight of my own apparently dead body under the ice. 

"I am. And so are you." he smiled.

I chuckled and looked into his glittering blue eyes. "Yeah, I figured that much." He laughed in response and rubbed his pale hand on my shoulder. "Wait, why did you come back for me?"

"I'm with you 'til the end of the line."

My bed. My bedroom. My apartment. I wasn't dead. It was just a dream. Another dream. But it felt so real...

Still in shock from the feeling of Bucky's warm hand on my cold shoulder, I stood from my bed and traveled into the living room, just to look and the clock and discover that it was only 1:34 in the morning. I moved to the window and lifted the pane, letting the cool, night breeze hit my face and blow my bangs out of my eyes. 

The psychologist said that she was afraid I would develop insomnia. But in fact, it was quite the opposite. I didn't want to fall asleep. Falling asleep meant that I had to go through that dream again, let it taunt me and then push me back into this twisted reality. Though she was right in the fact that I wouldn't be able to sleep past 3 am. The night terrors wracked my brain and then left me awake for the rest of the night until I had to do it all over again the next night. 

I gazed out the window. The buildings were all dimly lit by street lamps, making the city look like a ghost town. As I looked out over the night, I noticed a figure, dressed in all black, sitting on the sidewalk under my window. He was broad-shouldered, with long, dark hair, and one arm exposed from his black outfit. The arm looked to be wrapped in some sort of metal foil, glistening under the street lamp. When he saw me staring at him, he immediately stood from the barrel he was sitting on and bolted for the side of the building. 

Without thinking, I spotted a ladder 5 feet from the window sill and jumped, catching onto the side of the building and lowering myself down until I reached the ground and continued to run. I turned the corner where he ran from and saw him sprinting down the sidewalk, so I followed suit and sped up. My legs pounded against the pavement in swift, quick strides as I slowly began to catch up with him. He was fast, but not as fast as the super-soldier serum let me be. 

He looked over his shoulder as he ran, trying to catch a glimpse of me, but in his wake, he tripped over a divot in the pavement. He scrambled to stand up, but by the time he was off the ground, I was only 5 feet from where he stood. 

"Who are you?" I called. I waited for a response, but was only met by the man turning to face me. I had not yet seen his face, but I was not prepared for what I saw. 

"Bucky?!" I shouted into the night. His brows furrowed and his face hardened, but his bright blue eyes still remained gleaming in the moonlight.

Surely I must have been still dreaming. Bucky was dead. I knew that. I watched him die 70 years ago. But as I approached him, I saw certain things that could not have been in a dream. He didn't look anything like I remembered. His hair was long, matted, and hanging at his collarbones. His left arm had been replaced with a metal replica, and there was a dark ring around each of his eyes, as though he hadn't slept in 10 years. He was taller than I remembered, and had more muscle to him, but his soft eyes still remained. Despite his hardened expression, he still seemed to look at me the way he did before the war. 

"Buck, I thought you were dead?" I half-smiled, trying not to scare him away. His body language showed that he was ready to run at any given moment. 

"Who's Bucky?" he mumbled and ran into the darkness until I could no longer see his moving frame.


	4. She's Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is introduced to Sharon Carter, an agent at SHIELD, who is sent to train Steve and get him back in shape to fight. After the training session, Steve learns that, contrary to his preconceived notion, Peggy is still alive.

"Hello, Captain Rogers. I'm Agent Carter." she smiled, showing her perfectly straight, white teeth. "It really is an honor to meet you. My aunt ranted and raved about you for years, and now I finally get to put a face to the name."

I smiled in response and pushed my hands deeper into my pockets. She was beautiful. Almost as beautiful as her aunt, Peggy Carter, but in a different way. While Peggy had strong, defined features, Sharon was softer, with less harsh lines on her smooth face. Her eyes were a dark brown, with long, wavy blonde hair framing her face. She was dressed in SHIELD agent uniform, which tightly hugged her body and showed off her curves. I couldn't help but notice her resemblance to Peggy, both in looks, stature, and even commanding attitude. 

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you as well, Agent Carter." I replied, pulling a smile and blushing slightly. 

"So, shall we get to work?" she suggested, leading me down a long corridor. 

We finally reached a large, empty training room at the end of a long, dark hallway. The walls were light gray, matching both the ceiling and floor, as well as the mats and punching bags that sat in the far corner of the giant room. 

"One question," I stated, stripping off my leather jacket so that I was only left in a white t-shirt and sweatpants, "why does Nick Fury want me training, anyway? It's not like he's going to put me back in the military."

"He hasn't told anyone anything about you yet, other than the fact that you just started training today. So I'm not really sure, but my guess is that he's going to recruit you as a SHIELD agent." she responded once she was ready to begin. My eyes must have widened a bit and revealed my apprehension towards the idea of becoming just another mercenary in Fury's game. "Don't worry. That's just my thought. Besides, you would be the ultimate agent. I mean, come one, Captain America, continuing the legacy of his military sweetheart. If that doesn't scream adorable, then I don't know what does." she laughed, tying her hair up into a ponytail. 

"Really, you're the one continuing Peggy's legacy." I stated, turning an even brighter shade of pink. "And I just don't think I'm cut out for the job."

"Then what are you cut out for?"

Nothing. I wasn't meant to be here. It was only by some freak accident that I was still alive. "I don't know, retirement? I'm 97, remember?" 

She laughed again, shaking her head and stepping closer to me. "Oh please, you're a 97 year old stuck in a 25 year old's body. And you've only experienced 25 years, you've still got 72 more to go until you're really 97."

"Right, well, hopefully I won't live long enough to see that day." I joked half-heartedly, though inside I fully meant it. If it were my choice, I wouldn't have lived long enough to wake up from the ice coma. 

Before I had a chance to react, she swung a punch at my head. I ducked and grabbed her by the knee, flinging her body into the air and landing her on the mat, staring up at me with wide eyes. She responded with a grasp of my ankle, smacking the back of my knee without expectation and letting me fall to the ground with her. "You're a bit rusty, but that's okay. Get the shield." 

For the next hour, I was once again immersed in the world of hand-to-hand combat. Like she said, I was rusty, but I performed better than both of us expected. By the end of the training session, all of my muscles were extremely sore, and Sharon was a bit bruised up from a few accidental bangs from my shield. She dismissed the lesson and returned to her corner of the room, where she fixed her hair, got dressed back into her SHIELD agent uniform, and allowed me some privacy in getting dressed myself. 

"So," I started, "next week, same time?" 

"Yes. I might even schedule a few more sessions before then, just to try and get you back into fighting shape as fast as possible." she replied, slinging her gym bag over her shoulder and approaching the door. "I'll have to tell aunt Peggy that you're back."

"Excuse me?" I stuttered. "You mean... she's still alive?"

"Yup, just pushing 95. She's sort of lost her mind a bit. She's got Alzheimer's disease, you see, so she's kind of out of it." she replied, softer in tone of voice. "Nobody even told her yet that you're alive, because we can't figure out how to tell her without giving her a heart attack from the sheer shock of it."

"Uh..." I stammered, awestruck. "I don't even know what to say."


	5. Remembrence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes to visit Peggy with Sharon, which leaves Peggy in utter shock and almost gives her a heart attack. As he's leaving, Steve sees the same decrepit Bucky that was under his window two weeks prior, though Sharon doesn't believe that it's Bucky, so she just assumes that Steve is having a hallucination from the shock of reuniting with Peggy.

"Will she know it's me?" I mumbled quietly as we approached Peggy's front door. Sharon nodded and pushed a stray hair out of her face. 

"Of course." she replied with as much confidence as her aunt once had. "There's no way that she wouldn't. She's never stopped loving you... even after she got married and had children. You were the one that got away." 

I took a deep breath before carefully placing my hand on the handle of the door and pushing slowly. It creaked a bit as it opened, which must have alarmed Peggy, who was laying on a bed inside the main room. "Who's there?" she croaked, her voice old and brittle, so different from the last time I had heard her voice in the crashing ship. "Sharon, is that you, dear?"

"Yes, Aunt Peggy." Sharon replied sweetly, sliding herself through the door frame and showing herself to Peggy. Peggy's eyes lit up when she saw her niece enter the room. "And I've brought someone with me today..." She turned to face me and ushered me a bit with her hand. Peggy still couldn't see me, since I was hidden behind the door frame, but she seemed excited to have a visitor. 

Slowly, I treaded into the room. Peggy's eyes filled with shock and wonder and awe when she saw me approaching her bedside. I smiled slightly and ran a hand through my hair, not sure what to do. My heart ached and saw the young Peggy when I looked in her clouded eyes, but the more I looked at her, the more I saw an old woman. It was heartbreaking. 

I came over to her bedside and pulled up a chair. She reached her hands out for me and grazed the side of my face, desperately touching me to make sure I was real and she wasn't just imagining this moment. "Steve... you... you came back..." Tears started falling from her eyes and her bottom lip quivered. "H-how are you still alive?"

"I was in a coma in the New York ice. The serum kept me alive for all of these years." I grinned, grabbing her hands and engulfing them in mine. 

"This isn't real." she coughed. "This c-can't be real. You were dead. I... I went back to look for your body, but there was nothing there." At this point, she was completely sobbing in disbelief. 

"Well, all that matters is that I'm here now." I whispered. She kept crying quietly, resting her head in my hands and heaving with each sob she took. Sharon sighed across the room and sat on the sofa. Time seemed to be passing as slowly as possible, but when I looked at the clock above Sharon's seat, we had already been there for half an hour. 

After my hands were completely soaked in Peggy's tears, she lifted her head and sniffled. I took my thumb and wiped underneath her eyes. "Why did you come back?"

"I couldn't leave my best girl." I smiled softly, glancing into her eyes. "And you owe me a dance, remember?"

She laughed a bit, then started hacking something up from deep inside her throat. It was then that I fully realized just how ill she really was. I handed her the glass of water that was sitting on the nightstand next to her bed. "Thank you." she choked, gradually emptying the cup. She placed it back in my hands and laid back in her bed. "I'm not as healthy as I once was."

"It's alright, it's alright, ssshhh..." I rubbed my hand on her shoulder gently. "Look, Peggy, I'm going to come back next week. Is that alright?"

"Of course it's alright." she smiled and coughed some more. I lifted her hand and kissed it gently before setting it back down and making my way back toward the doorway. I waved goodbye and let Sharon say goodbye to her aunt in private. As Sharon took her time with Peggy, I proceeded out to the lobby of the nursing home. 

I took a seat not too far from the entrance to Peggy's residence and waited patiently for Sharon to meet me in the entrance of the building. There was a quiet crowd of people sitting in the lobby, including a few old ladies playing bingo, some middle aged couples waiting to greet their relatives, and a man, sitting by himself in a corner of the room. 

His dark hair was long and matted, and somehow, even though I couldn't see his face, he seemed eerily familiar. When the door to Peggy's home opened and Sharon emerged, he turned his head to reveal his identity. I did a double take. I had my hunch about him being my long lost best friend, but it was when I saw his face that it clicked in my brain. 

"Bucky..." I whispered under my breath. 

"What did you say?" Sharon asked, tilting her head and shoving her hands in her pockets as she approached me. 

"Uh... nothing..." I muttered, walking away from Sharon and closer to Bucky. 

"Steve, what are you looking at?" she asked again, trying to figure out my gaze. She placed her hand on my shoulder and tried to turn me to face her, but I kept walking toward the ghost of my best friend. "Steve..."

"Bucky? Please?" I tried, only standing a foot behind my missing friend. 

"Steve, Bucky's dead. He's been dead for 70 years." Sharon stated, grabbing the back of my leather jacket and pulling me towards her again. "Steve, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. But I swear I just saw him walk out of the lobby, through those doors." I pointed to the exit of the nursing home and watched as Bucky left. How could she not have seen him? He was right there, in plain sight...

She sighed once more and brushed her blonde hair to the other side of her head. "I saw a man leave, but it wasn't Bucky. There's no way that he could have been Bucky. Like I said, I'm sorry, Steve, but Bucky's been dead for a long long time."

"No..."

"I don't think you're okay, Steve. Maybe we should get you some medical help-"

"No, Sharon, really. I'm fine." I stammered, finally turning to face her. 

"Are you sure this isn't a hallucination or something? Maybe you're just shocked from seeing Peggy. Honestly, I think you should have some water." she tried again. I pushed her hand away from me and towered over her short stature. 

"Agent Carter, I'm fine." I spat. "I'm not having any hallucinations. I know what I saw."


	6. I Know He's Still Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has another scheduled appointment with the pyschologist at SHIELD again, but once he gets there, it is canceled due to a breech in the SHIELD security systems, so he instead spends his time there exploring the building, only to find a computer that contains files concerning Bucky, who is very much alive.

The corridors of SHIELD headquarters were empty when I reached the lobby of the Triskellion. Other than SHIELD agents bustling around, carrying guns in their hands and all heading down one wing of the building, there was no one else in sight. I made my way to the directory, to see that, instead of all glowing like they normally did, half of the sectors on the map were shut down. 

I was supposed to be meeting with the psychologist again, since after that scene in the nursing home, Sharon insisted that I get my mental health checked. I was reluctant to attend, but I knew that Nick Fury would send bullets through my front door if I didn't show up without notifying them. Upon looking at the directory, I immediately noticed that the section in which my meeting was being held was no longer lit up. I lucked out, I guess. 

I approached the glass double doors of the Triskellion once more, to try and leave, but they were jammed. I didn't want to shatter them and get myself thrown in a cell, so instead I returned to the lobby and took a seat on a small, grey bench. More agents rushed by and into a flashing red hallway, their feet pattering heavily against the dark tiled floor. I craned my neck to try and see down the corridor, but all that my eyes could make out was a mass of black uniforms and more flashing red. 

When the flood of agents had halted momentarily, I slipped away to the upstairs level of the lobby, to try and escape the chaos. Like the first floor, the second floor was deserted. However, unlike its neighboring floor, it housed no human occupants other than me. I walked slowly and carefully, trying not to make too much noise. All of the doors on this level were locked, and all the lights in the hallways were shut off instead of blazing red. 

Again, I ascended another level and took to the third. From this height, all of the windows were glass, which allowed me to see the entire city from where I stood, utterly alone once more. I proceeded down a different chosen hallway, one of only four on this floor without red flares erupting from the ceiling lights. There was only one doorway. I peeked through the glass door to see three rows of modern-looking computers and projection screens. As quietly as I could, I pushed open the door and entered, shutting it silently behind me. 

I paced through the room, letting my hand graze over the tops of the computers as I went. Only one was still on, the fourth computer in the second row. I approached it and sat down in the spinning chair that accompanied the desk. The screen glowed white, with a list of files that must have gone on for at least seven pages. I scrolled through the files, all containing names of random people. Jasper Sitwell, Alexander Pierce, Jane Porter, Brock Rumelow, James Barnes... James Barnes?

I clicked on James's file, recognizing Bucky's real name in a list of people who seemed to be very much alive. I grazed down the list of information on Bucky, all true. His birthday lay under a picture of the man that I saw in the nursing home, however not accompanied by a death date. There was only a dash next to his name, which meant that he still must have been alive at the time that this file was updated. Again, I scrolled down to the bottom of the page to see when the file had last been updated: March 6, 2009. Could he still be alive? 

I didn't get it. What was my brain doing to me? I kept seeing what I thought was my best friend, but was it possible that my brain could just be messing with me to try and force me to settle myself into this century? I mean, here was written proof that he was still alive, and I had seen him myself, or at least what I thought of him. What if Sharon was right? What if it really was just a hallucination.

I pinched my arm. Pain followed. It was real. I opened my tightly shut eyes and looked back at the computer screen to see that nothing had changed. The picture of Bucky, the missing death date, all still there. It must have been real. 

My hands reached up to my hair and gripped at the front tightly, clenching my teeth and then letting out a deep sigh. I quickly shut down the computer and leaned back in the chair, spinning it to face the door and see a figure standing on the other side of the glass door. My eyes widened and I slowly stood from the chair, approaching Sharon who stood in the door.

Her hair was tousled and messy, and her face was red, revealing that she had just been fighting about ten minutes prior. She was breathing quickly and heavily, sort of gasping, but trying to mask her heavy breaths at the same time. Her mouth tightened into a firm smile when she saw me, standing just a few inches away from her, but with the thick, glass door in between us. She finally opened the door and slithered through the small crack until she reached where I was standing. 

"Steve, what are you doing in here?" she smirked, but still speaking firmly. 

I sputtered a bit and ran a hand through my hair. "My appointment was canceled, and I got lost, so I just ended up here."

"You're a terrible liar." she stated and walked over to the computer where I was previously sitting. 

"So what happened with you?" I asked, following her and leaning on the desk once she reached the computer. She turned on the computer and tried to search its history, but thankfully, she wasn't able to find anything, since the files had been opened before I went through them. "Why is half of the building shut down?"

"Classified." she smiled again. "But what I can tell you is that there was a breech in the SHIELD security system, which means that your psychologist will be tied up with other patients for the next few weeks and you won't be able to reschedule your appointment."

"Oh, what a shame. I guess this means that I'll keep having those hallucinations until then." I teased.

"Steve," she sighed, stepping in front of me as I tried to leave, "it's not funny. You could be having some serious brain function issues. I just want you to be alright. And knowing that you're seeing dead people isn't that settling to me. I watched Aunt Peggy go insane, and even though I've only known you for a few weeks, I still care about you. I grew up listening to story after story about the famous Captain America, and now that he's my friend, I don't want to see him turn out like my aunt did."

"Wait," I grinned, "we're friends?"


	7. The New Recruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whilst training alone, Nick Fury approaches Steve and gives him intel on a new project, a team he's putting together to protect Earth from any outside invaders, the Avengers.

The punching bag was taking more hits than it had ever seen in its lifetime. I took swing after swing at it, letting my anger pound into the bag, rather than into me. Anger for leaving 1945, anger for leaving Peggy and Bucky and the war, anger for the serum keeping me alive for this long when I should have either been dead or in bed rest like Peggy. With each punch, small beads would start dripping out from the bottom of the bag, signalling that I should stop before the punching bag splits in half. However, I kept going. Harder and harder. More and more punches. Until I hit the bag so hard that it burst and flew off the metal chain that tethered it to the ceiling. 

I took a moment to collect my self once more, brushed my sweat-dripping hair out of my eyes, and walked over to the tattered bag. I picked up what was left of it, swiping off the few remaining beads that clung to the outside of the punching bag. I placed it into the trash can that sat at the entrance of the training room, then returned to the bench in the middle of the floor to start packing up. I had been training alone for two hours now, since Sharon was called in for a mission, and she wasn't available to train with me. 

As I finished unwrapping the boxing tape from my bruised knuckles, a figure entered the room and stood in the door frame. I tried not to pay him any attention, hoping that he was just another SHIELD agent that booked the training room after I had. But alas, the figure approached me, dressed in all black and carrying a stack of manila folders. 

"Captain." Nick Fury stated, stopping 3 feet from where I was standing. I looked up from my hands and nodded my head. 

"Director Fury." I replied, taking a seat after pushing my duffel bag to the other side of the bench. "Are you here to try to get me back into the world, sir?"

"Something like that, but mostly trying to save it." he said, now standing in front of me and towering over me. He tossed me the files and gestured to read them. I opened the first file and immediately recognized the picture on the first page. The tesseract. "Howard Stark found this when he was looking for you. We think it's the key to sustainable energy, and that's something the world desperately needs."

"Did someone take it from you?" I asked, handing him back the file. 

"His name is Loki, and he's... foreign." he muttered and rubbed the back of his bald head. "There's a briefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment."

"Do I have a choice?" I raised a brow in his direction. 

"Not really." He grinned a bit, though it was most likely sarcastic. "Look, this project has been in the back of my mind for quite a while, but now, the world needs the Avengers more than ever before."

"The Avengers?"

"A group of crimefighters... uh... superheroes who can keep the world safe from any outside invaders." he explained. "I know, we need to work on the name, but I'm serious. The world needs the Avengers right now. The world needs you, Captain. Is there anything you can tell us about the tesseract that we should know?"

"You should have left it in the ocean."


	8. The Night Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night before he is supposed to meet the rest of the Avengers on the SHIELD helecarrier, Steve finally talks to Bucky in his apartment, but before Steve can get any answers, Bucky jumps out the window and disappears into the night. The next day, Steve arrives at the helecarrier and gets to meet the first 3 of the Avengers.

The psychologist said that I was experiencing such vivid dreams due to the coma and the lack of dreams that I had for 70 years. However, I didn't agree. Being thrown into the next century was extremely hard to adjust to, so in my version of it, my brain was giving me small breaks from reality and letting me go back to my past, though it just toyed with my senses and left me feeling nostalgic. 

I was expecting to have the same dream that I'd been having ever since I'd seen Bucky under my window that night. Plane crashes, Peggy owes me a dance, I die, and then Bucky comes and tells me that he's with me 'til the end of the line. But this time, I wasn't in the past. I was in the present, in my apartment, sleeping in my bed, but still somehow conscious of everything that was going on in a 10 foot vicinity. My eyes blinked open abruptly to reveal my bedroom. The door was cracked open slightly, but the only thing that I could see past the door was darkness. Suddenly, a pair of dark blue eyes appeared in the crack in the door frame and stared deep into my own. I slowly sat up and remained at the end of my bed while the shadowy figure emerged from the darkness and approached me from across the room. I reached for my shield, which should have been lying on the floor next to my nightstand, but was nowhere to be found. I looked around frantically for the shield, only to discover that it was hooked around the left arm of the figure, the metal arm. 

"Bucky, give me the shield." I demanded, standing from my previous sitting position and shuffling closer to the darker version of my once light best friend. He shook his head, slowly at first, then quicker until his shaggy hair started swinging with his neck. "Buck, is everything alright?"

"Sss... S-Steve..." he slurred, balancing just barely. I reached out and touched his shoulder gently, then placing it more firmly so as to ground him and prevent him from running away. "It... it's just..." he whispered. 

"It's okay, Buck. You're with me... it's alright." I smiled sympathetically. I had so many questions. How was he still alive? Why was he still alive? And how did he get here? How did he find me? Better yet, why does he look like a hoodlum? But I didn't bother. He was obviously shook up, and pressing him with questions wasn't going to help the situation. 

He finally mustered up the strength to spit out a few sentences. "Steve, I'm alive. And you're alive. And I've kept coming to see you, but I had to leave because I knew they would come for me if they found me missing..." 

"Who? Bucky, who's going to come for you?" I tried, taking another step closer to him so that now there was only a few inches in between us. I felt anxiety and tension boil up inside me. I longed for Bucky. I had longed for Bucky ever since he fell off the train and left me. And now he was here, or so I thought. Maybe I was just dreaming again...

Abruptly, without even thinking, I shoved the shield off of Bucky's metal arm and wrapped my hands around the back of his neck, tangling my fingers in his long hair. I pressed my lips to his, and for a split second, he kissed me back, but it ended all too soon. I wasn't with Bucky. I couldn't be with Bucky. Bucky was supposed to be dead. However, now I knew that I wasn't dreaming. The kiss was real. I felt it. It was better than I could have dreamed. 

He ran his metal fingers down my arm, sending chills up my spine from the tingle of the cold metal on my flesh. "Steve, I have to go." he weeped, lowering his head onto my shoulder and letting his hair drape down, covering his face. I rubbed the back of his neck, but before I knew it, he was standing in the window frame, looking deep into my eyes one last time before jumping out the window and running off into the night. 

I breathed slow and deep, sighing heavily as I lowered myself back into bed. I had to be well rested for the early flight to the SHIELD helecarrier tomorrow. But I couldn't sleep. I was too shook up from the interference with Bucky. How could he still be alive?... and how could he have kissed me back if I didn't even know that I was kissing him until it was over? Sweet sorrow led me back to sleep, and before I knew it, I was arriving on the deck of the helecarrier and exiting the quinjet with Agent Coulson.

"Right on time, Captain." Nick Fury slurred smoothly as he stood on the deck of the SHIELD helecarrier. The door to the quinjet slowly lowered to reveal Nick Fury outside the jet I had taken to the ship, staunch in his signature black robes. 

"I've wasted enough of my own time, might as well not waste yours sir." I replied with a curt grin. He started walking further onto the deck of the helecarrier, ushering me to follow. 

He stopped once he reached a man dressed in a full khaki suit. The man looked to be in his late 40s, maybe early 50s, with patches of grey hair entangled with the other black parts. He was short in stature compared to me, probably around 5'8, which left me feeling like a giant as I towered over both him and Nick Fury. "I'm Dr. Bruce Banner, pleasure to meet you, Cap."

"Nice to meet you too, Dr. Banner." I said in response, shaking his hand gently and then shoving my own hand back into the pocket of my nicely ironed, khaki pants. 

"You know, you're a medial miracle. I've done some research and experimentation myself, you see. I was the first to try and recreate your serum, but nothing worked. Dr. Erskine was truly a genius." Banner suggested. By this time, I hadn't even noticed that Nick Fury and snuck away and was approaching the indoor portion of the floating ship. 

I pointed to where Fury had previously been standing. "He snuck away real easily." 

"Well, he is a secret agent, after all." Banner smirked. "Speaking of secret agents..."

A woman approached us next. Her bright red hair was curled and hanging just below her jawline, framing her slim face and complimenting her piercing green eyes. She was shorter than both Dr. Banner and I, but you could visibly see muscle protruding from under her tight jacket and pants. "Cap, this is Agent Romanoff." Banner introduced. 

She nodded her head without changing her emotionless expression. "Did Coulson swoon?" I raised an eyebrow in confusion at her reference to the friendly SHIELD agent that brought me to the ship in the quinjet. "Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet? He's probably your biggest fangirl." she explained, again, face unmoving. "You know, you were the talk of the town around here when they dug you out of that ice."

"So it seems." I smiled awkwardly. "Dr. Banner, word is you can find the tesseract?"

"Is that the only word you heard on me?" 

"It's the only word I care about." I said. 

The rest of the day went smoothly, getting to meet the other Avenger, Mr. Tony Stark. He was extremely arrogant and couldn't seem to care less about the team, since he was too involved in showing up everyone with his high-tech gear and gadgets. Genius, billionare, playboy, philanthropist...

By the late night, I was finally taking to my sleeping quarters; a small room with metal walls and a bed that more resembled a cot than an actual mattress. Nevertheless, I was lucky to have a place to sleep at all. A clean, white shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants were awaiting me on the bed, so I went into the tiny, provided bathroom to get ready. I pulled on the shirt and the pants, followed by brushing my teeth with another tiny toothbrush and returning back to the room. Granted, this placed did feel more like a prison than a ship, but I'd seen worse from my days in the military. 

I laid down in the bed and closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of the ship coasting through the midnight air. Wind pounded against the bottom of the helecarrier and spattered debris against the small portholes. It still baffled me to think that a giant, invisible barge could soar through the skies without detection. Then again, now I was living in a world where there were phones with touch screens and communication devices that allowed people across the world to talk to each other without any form of delay. Sleep slowly overtook me and pulled me out of my senses, and soon enough, I was back in the dream of Peggy and Bucky and the plane crashing.


	9. Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is sent on his first SHIELD mission to fight against Loki and hopefully get Agent Barton back on their side, but he gets distracted when Loki mentions Steve's past and how he didn't die. Thankfully, Agent Romanoff and Tony Stark step into the situation and get Clint back, but Steve is still extremely shook up.

After 26 hours of searching literally the entire planet, SHIELD agents were finally able to track down Agent Barton's whereabouts. I was given a quick briefing on the matter, learning that Agent Clint Barton was in a sort of hypnotic trance by Loki, an Asgardian god who was attempting to take over the Earth. Personally, I didn't quite understand the entire situation, but I was told to just go along with it. My mission was to parachute from the quinjet onto the ground in front of an art museum in Germany, where Loki was hiding out at the current moment. I was told to take him down at all costs and not let him escape, and especially not let Barton escape. 

I sat in the quinjet, trying to fasten my parachute onto my back, but without much luck. Agent Romanoff was manning the controls of the small aircraft, and Tony Stark sat opposite me in the jet, clad in his Iron Man armor suit. It still baffled me to think that something such as Tony's suit could exist, but then again, I was in a different century. I no longer had a right to expect anything. 

Once I had finally gotten the parachute on, Agent Romanoff lowered the back hatch of the plane. "Aim for where Loki is standing. Do whatever it takes to contain him, and just don't get killed or captured or mind-controlled." she stated harshly. I nodded and leaped out the back of the jet, aiming as best I could for where Loki had congregated a group of museum tourists. 

When I had landed in the bushes that stood right behind where Loki currently stood, I could vaguely see what I was up against. He was tall, but not nearly as tall as I. His sleek, black hair was pointed upward like spikes at the nape of his neck, where his jawline met a tall, medieval-looking collar. His floor-length cape was a deep green, matching the rest of his ridiculous outfit. Granted, I wasn't one to talk, since Agent Coulson had set me up with a brighter, more colorful version of my old Captain America uniform, but my outfit was nothing compared to Loki's. Talk about foreign...

"KNEEL!" he shouted at the crowd, who all slowly lowered to their knees as somehow Loki multiplied himself so that he surrounded the large group. I remained crouched in the bushes until one man, probably in his early 60's, stood up in the middle of the congregation.

"I will never kneel to a man like you." This was my cue. As Loki aimed his scepter at the innocent man's chest, I sprung myself from the bushes and jumped in front of the man, covering him with my shield. A beam of blue light bounced off the shield and launched itself at Loki, though he was able to duck out of the way and save himself. 

The crowd cleared out once I emerged, finally giving Loki the distraction they needed to escape. "Ah," he sighed, "Captain America. The man straight out of time." There was an evil smirk smeared across his heinous face, the kind that only a psychopath could wear properly. He tilted his head a bit and slowly aimed the saber at myself. Another beam of blue light shot out and nearly caught me, though luckily I was able to escape in time. I ran over to him and took a swing at his head, only to hit the glorified stick. Though with my shield, I smacked him on the other side of his body and he fell to the ground. 

I kicked him while he was still down, dodging yet another attempted throw of his scepter. It really didn't seem like he had much experience in hand to hand combat, so I was going to use this to my advantage. He was up off the ground in an instant, but I had him writhing back on the ground in less than a second. Again, he kept aiming at me, swinging the scepter at my body, and I was usually able to dodge it. However, with one blow to the back of the knee, I was on the ground.

He stood quickly and managed to tower over my tall frame. Instead of beating me again with the saber, he circled around me and stared deep into my eyes. His own were a pale blue, nearly silver because they were so light in color. His lips tightened into a thin, crooked smile and he stopped once he reached my feet. I slowly sat up, trying not to make any sudden movements. 

"How'd you do it, Captain?" he leered. 

I raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"How'd you do it?" he repeated. "How'd you even live? You should be dead. You should be dead with your girlfriend Peggy and that lousy soldier Bucky." 

"You don't know anything about me. And I think your time here is running out." I replied coolly, quickly leaping from the ground and pouncing on him to pin him to the concrete floor once more. 

"You should have died, Captain. But no, somehow you were able to live. You'll never die. Despite how hard you might want to, or you might try to, you'll never die." His words stung into me for some unknown reason. Why should I be listening to this lunatic from outer space? I shouldn't, but somehow, it still got to me. 

Fortunately, just before I almost let him go due to the wounding that his phrases had caused, heavy metal music rained from the skies. Even though I hated his music with a burning passion, I had never been happier to see Mr. Stark in the Iron Man suit. He shot down from the air, jumping right out of the quinjet and landing with his fist into the cement just a few feet from where I had Loki pinned to the ground. 

"I'll take it from here, Cap." he stated, shooting Loki in the hand with a beam of white light and forcing him to drop the scepter. The quinjet landed and Agent Romanoff rushed out, sprinting into the museum to go and find Agent Barton. Tony calmly strutted over to Loki and smacked him across the face. He grabbed him by the hands and turned them so that he was grasping Loki's hands together behind his back, making it so that Loki had no possible escape route. 

They both entered the quinjet once more, each having hold of their hostage. I shuffled quietly behind them, absorbing Loki's words. He was right. I was supposed to be dead. I shouldn't be here. Why should I even continue with this mission if I'm meant to be up in heaven anyway? Honestly, I had a temptation to abandon the mission altogether, to just run from the scene and never look back until I couldn't keep running any longer. But one small part of me wanted to press on. One small part of me wasn't done fighting. One small part of me would never be done fighting. And that's the real reason why I was still here.


	10. Hiatus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers! I'm terribly sorry that I've left this book in the dust, but I assure you, this story is not over. I am currently working on writing a novel that will be done by the end of the summer, so as soon as that is over, I will be straight back to this book. If you want to read the novel just comment below and let me know so that I can post a copy. Thanks so much!

Hello readers! I'm terribly sorry that I've left this book in the dust, but I assure you, this story is not over. I am currently working on writing a novel that will be done by the end of the summer, so as soon as that is over, I will be straight back to this book. If you want to read the novel just comment below and let me know so that I can post a copy. Thanks so much!


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